When I first started thinking of a better way to make a fixed gear bicycle hub, my primary focus was on the cog engagement.  The cog/hub interface to be exact.  I began by analysing all the forces that a sprocket will be subjected to in an off-road environment.  They are many, not just the driving and braking torques, I assure you.  After coming up with a basic concept, I started to talk to people.  People who know things.  Things like machining, CAD, bike industry pulse and how to brew a kick ass beer.   It was a long winter.   Several batches of really good beer and the G-code (the language used in the computer aided lathes and mills for machining) for a bike hub came out of it. 

While the sprocket engagement was the priority, I soon realized that I was working with, essentially, a blank canvas and could do anything I wanted.  I could take all those frustrating moments I have had with all of my past bike hubs and make something that worked.  Worked in a way that was simple.  And was easily fixed if and when it failed to work no matter where I was.  That led to a design philosophy that I still base all of my new concepts around.  I took a good hard look at the "special tools" needed to repair, change or rebuild a hub and made it my mission to eliminate them.  Sorry Park,  but I think it is a travesty what the top component manufacturers are doing to the industry.  (In more ways than one.) 

The design criteria below came about from a full winter reflecting on problems I personally had or saw come into the shop I worked at in DC.  They also reflect a wish list of sorts.  Kind of a "How cool would it be if..." scenario when designing something.

I wanted to pantent this.  First understand that there are several types of patents.  In this case, the two that I was dealing with were either a utility patent or a design patent.  I chose to go for a utility patent.  They are harder to get but cover more "territory".  The design patent only covers the "Design".  Kind of like how eye glasses can be patented.  The utility of eyewear was invented a long time ago, it's the  design that is patented. I initially thought I had come up with a pretty revolutionary idea and therefore thought that the utility of bolting  the hub around a set of arcuate keyways was something never done.  Yes, sprockets have been bolted on before but not in the same manner, reasoned.

The utility of the sprocket being bolted to "unitary molded hub", as scene by the patent office, however, would have been "obvious at the time of invention" of such other bicycle components as the splined bottom bracket.  They also sighted a paragraph from the Code of Federal Regulations stating that any product that has been manufactured and sold on the open market for more than a year may not be patented.  This was my out.  

The last bit of information basically gave me free reign on what I have created and have been selling, at the time of the correspondence with the USPTO, for 3 years.  No patent required I deduced.  Understand also that a patent only serves to establish a timeline of invention.  It does not necessarily protect you from the bastard, concept stealing, assholes that this industry seems to be ripe with.  Having already set up and established a business revolving around this product is more than enough proof of ownership in my book.

The pics below illustrate the concept from beginning to the patent stage.  The one on the left is the culmination of several ideas from doodles and random thoughts to wishes and engineering background concepts.  The pic on the right is
one of the many actual diagrams as submitted to the USPTO.




Design Criteria
I narrowed down my goals to these six criteria.
  • Develop an alternative to the threaded lockring for fixing a sprocket to a hub 
  • To be able to swap the hub from track bike to mtb, swap the spacers, flip the cog over and have   everything line up
  •  Same spoke length front and rear, left and right; same bearings too.
  •  Take a full century of complacency with a flawed design and through it out the window
  •  High flanges so you can repair a broken spoke on the drive side even if you are running a large cog
  •  To be completely serviceable using standard tools (you can press the bearing in with the cog and spacers in an emergency situation)

Industry nine meets Level

Industry Nine is working on our next prototype.  A lighter version hub having the Level cog interface and the I9 spoke flange system.  This is the first step of a three part concept that I would love see come to fruition.  The other two parts are somewhat of a secret right now. 





Comments on sprocket to hub interface:

It is extremely important to understand that there are additional forces on a sprocket while riding off road-fixed, and that those forces are spatially greater than those applied to a coasting freewheel as well as a disc rotor.  These vectors need to be addressed for the system to perform optimally, and to resist failure.  There comes a price with this level of commitment and without proper consideration failure is certain.

Not ready for this level of commitment and not sure if you really want to ride off road-fixed:

try this first...it's cheaper...


Tomicog

or this...

http://www.londonfixiebike.co.uk/


logos for download...

12 star








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Santa Barbara
Scott's Phone: 805-280-9768
•  Scott's Email: shansen@levelcomponents.com
Reed's Phone: 202-439-1034